by Paul Bagdon
Warner laughed. “Can you fix old lady Joplin being dead too?”
Lee stumbled back a step, feeling as if the floor had suddenly tilted. “You didn’t . . .” she gasped.
“I probably did. I had to give her a pretty fair whack. It could have killed her. She sure wasn’t moving when I pulled out.”
Lee found the wall with her back and slid to the floor, her legs extended in front of her, dazed, not wanting to believe what Warner had said. Tears started in her eyes and flowed down her face. She made no move to wipe them away.
Warner watched her cry. Finally, he spoke. “I don’t have time for this. Open the safe, and I’ll be out of here in five minutes. I’m not going to ask again.”
Lee awkwardly pushed herself to her feet. “I don’t know the combination. I keep it in the drawer of the
table in the parlor. You can find it there,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper.
“And leave you here all alone, correct?” He laughed. “One thing I’m not is stupid. Take the lantern and walk ahead of me. We’ll go to the parlor together. Go on—move!”
Lee exaggerated her clumsiness as she reached for the wire handle of the lantern. “I’m dizzy,” she murmured. “I’m afraid I’m going to faint.”
Warner shoved her, starting her out the doorway. She moved her feet woodenly, almost shuffling, her mind spinning like a windmill blade in a hurricane. Again, she focused on her rifle. She swallowed hard when she realized that she’d have to click off the safety and work the lever to bring a bullet into the firing chamber. That would take perhaps a second—more time than she had. She weaved toward the table in front of the window. It was dark outside, and the yard in front of her house was empty and still. Nearby, a horse snorted wetly, extending the burst of air he blew through his nostrils. Lee stopped at the table and stood there facing it, holding the lantern, judging the distance to the window.
“Don’t just stand there! Get the combination. Move!”
Lee sagged forward, shoulders drooping, and put her left hand out to steady herself on the table. Warner moved forward to hold her upright.
“Don’t start any of this fainting stuff. I’m getting real—”
Lee bent at the waist, moaned, and then swung the lantern in an arc, slamming it into Warner’s chest. Fuel slopped from it onto his shirt and immediately ignited from the flame at the top of the light. Warner yelled, dropped his gun, and beat at his chest with both hands, his scream becoming a rant of curses. Lee, free for the moment, hurled the lantern through the window, smashing it and sending shards of glass flying to her front yard. She raised her arms to cover her face and, already in motion, followed the lantern out the window.
She hit the ground hard, but she hit it partially tucked into the beginning of a roll. Her breath left her in a loud whoosh as she rolled forward off her shoulders. She scrambled to get her feet under her and launched herself to the side, toward the house and around the corner, out of sight and out of the range of Warner’s pistol.
Warner was at the window. With his arm poking through the broken glass and his pistol swinging from side to side, he looked for Lee. A slug dug a hole in the window frame, an inch from his head. Slivers of glass and wood sprayed him, the razorlike bits carving bleeding lines across his features.
“Warner!” Ben shouted from the yard. “Drop that gun and come out here!” In a lower voice, he added, “Lee, get Carlos to watch the back of the house!”
Warner recognized the voice. “Come on in and get me, Flood!” He fired a shot and dropped below the windowsill.
The lantern had smashed when it struck the ground. The remaining fuel caught fire and burned in an oval puddle. Light glinted on metal, and Ben threw himself to the side, firing once. Warner’s bullet dug a furrow in the ground where Ben had been a half second ago.
Warner dared another look out the window, fired a couple of rounds at nothing, and backed away, the back of his leg knocking over Lee’s rifle near the door. He holstered his pistol, grabbed the Winchester from the floor, and was jacking the lever when the door burst inward as if it had been struck by a battering ram.
The door missed him by few inches and crashed into the wall. The power of the impact threw the door back, and its edge bashed into Ben’s side like a swing of an axe. The crack of a rib breaking was louder than the harsh breathing of the two men. Ben, wrenched to the side by the door, grasped clumsily at Warner and then struck the floor, his intended flying tackle now an awkward sprawl.
Warner snapped a shot at Ben’s head with the rifle, missed, and banged the lever of the 30.06 downward, jamming the mechanism in his fury. He struggled with the lever for a moment, cursed, and swung the weapon by the barrel. The heavy, solid-wood stock caught Ben just above his ear.
Warner swung again and grazed Ben’s head. So violent and enraged was his swing that the stock cracked and splintered, sending a numbing jolt of pain through both his arms. He flung the rifle aside and stood, drawing air and cursing. He reached for his Colt, but his fingers refused to obey. They fumbled about, touching the grips without grasping, fluttering from the sudden surge of disabling pain. His curses became a scream as he moved back a step and kicked Ben in the stomach and then the head.
Ben didn’t move after Warner delivered the two blows with his boot. Blood puddled under and around his head, and the now-dying lantern-fuel fire made it glisten like ice on the polished hardwood floor.
He was drifting now, moving in currents of soft air that carried him as gently as a bit of plant fluff in a summer breeze. At the same time, someone—something—was tugging urgently at his left side. There was a hissing in his ears that grew louder, diminishing the pleasure of floating. It was like the angry sound of a white-hot horseshoe plunging into water. And it didn’t seem like an outside sound, but one that was coming from his own core—and it was becoming strident and shrill. The pressure on his left side was escalating too. It no longer pulled at him, but instead was pushing, crushing him, sending sharp tendrils of pain that made his ride on air a jagged, jerky sensation that was not at all a respite . . .
Ben’s eyes popped open. Pain delivered a searing streak of torment to his left side, and his head rang with clamor and heat. He forced himself to a sitting position. His eyes took some time to focus, and when they did, they fixed on the shattered stock of Lee’s Winchester. He pushed to his knees and then groaned his way to his feet, leaning against the wall.
There were voices outside the open door, but the words barely penetrated the screeching in Ben’s head.
“Marshall? Marshall?” Two of Lee’s ranch hands stood outside, neither one carrying a long gun or pistol. Ben stepped away from the wall and waved them back. At that moment, there was a crash from Lee’s office loud enough to penetrate the noise in Ben’s head. He lurched down the short hall, his fingers moving toward his pistol.
Warner stepped just outside the doorway to the office, a dark form in an even darker hall.
“You don’t die easy, Flood.”
“No easier than I have to. Get your hands up an’ turn your back to me an’ you might walk out of here.” His words issued from a parched throat; they sounded weak.
Warner squared himself, moving his left boot back a few inches. “I’ll tell you what, Flood: Drop your gun belt, and I’ll let you live. You’re in no shape to draw against me—and on the best day you ever had you couldn’t beat me.”
Ben shifted his shoulders slightly, and a bolt of pain screamed at him from his left side. Warner was no more than six feet away. He could smell the man’s breath and sweat. He knew that Warner could right now be sliding his pistol from his holster.
Lee stormed through the back door, slamming it open so hard that it crashed against the wall. The lantern she carried shoulder high cast its harsh light into the hallway like a lightning bolt. “Ben!” she yelled. “Ben, are you all right?”
Warner’s hand darted to his pistol. Ben’s hand seemed to move on its own, drawing his Colt smoothly with no wasted moti
on, as quick as lightning striking a tree. At the same time, a wave of pain caused him to cry out. His right hand, its skills honed over the years, its muscles and tendons trained to never vacillate from their mission, raised the pistol and pulled the trigger twice.
Warner was punched back into the wall by the first slug. The next, the briefest part of a second later, caught him as he was falling. He hit the floor face first, his head almost touching Ben’s right boot.
Ben saw Lee standing in the doorway, holding the lamp at shoulder height like a garden statue. Her eyes were fixed on him as he too slid to the floor. He didn’t see her rush to his side.
The walk up the gentle slope took longer than it usually did for Ben and Lee. The moon was a brilliant white and hanging a few feet above the stillness of the prairie, and the air was mild; there was no breeze, and the boulders at Lee’s special spot still held the warmth of the sun.
“Maria said Carlos is like a caged bear,” Lee said. “She said he’s the worst, most demanding patient in the world.”
Ben smiled. “Carlos’s head is too thick for anyone to really hurt.”
“That’s funny—he said the same thing about you.”
Ben laughed and then wished he hadn’t. Even with the tightly wrapped gauze holding his two fractured ribs in place, quick moves caused jolts of excruciating pain.
For a moment they sat in silence on the flat surface of a boulder they’d come to refer to as “the bench.” Lee breathed in deeply, then spoke quietly. “It seems impossible that all that happened was only ten days ago. I’m so sorry. I hope you know just how sorry I am.”
“We’ve been all through that, Lee. We were tricked, along with the church and the whole town. But it’s over now. Warner’s dead.”
“Missy keeps calling him a whitened sepulcher.”
“Well, that’s what he was.” Ben shifted his position and eased his right arm over Lee’s shoulders. She sighed and snuggled against him more closely.
He cleared his throat. “I need to change some things in my life. I know that. I just need a little time.”
“I need to make some changes too. We both need a little time.”
“But together, right?”
“Yes, Ben—together.”